by Leo Barron
At LSU, Chappuis became interested in the military life. As were many Depression-era young men who joined the military or civilian work programs, Chappuis was happy to have a roof over his head, regular work, camaraderie, and three square meals a day at LSU. He fell into the ordered life easily and, as a quick-learning cadet, never received a demerit. Ironically, his ROTC commandant during this time was none other than Troy Middleton.
In 1936, Chappuis graduated with a second lieutenant’s commission, through a federal program called the Thomason Act that helped ROTC grads become commissioned quickly in the regular army. With war breaking out in Asia, and the threat of war in Europe, the U.S. Army was pushing to expand the ranks with young officers like Chappuis.
The lanky Louisianan was transferred to lackluster posts at Fort Sam Houston in Texas, Fort Huachuca in Arizona, and even Schofield Barracks in Hawaii within just a few short years. Chappuis was ordered back to the States after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Shortly after that infamous day, he volunteered for the airborne. Soon he found himself heading to the European theater.
Just prior to D-day, Chappuis was eventually promoted to command 2nd Battalion of the 502nd and won praise from his regimental commander at that time, Lieutenant Colonel John H. “Iron Mike” Michaelis.34 When Michaelis was wounded in Holland in September, Chappuis took over as regimental commander.
“Steven was very smart and down to earth,” his youngest brother, Charles, mentioned in an interview years later. “He was more of thinker and doer, not a talker. For one thing, even after the war was over he didn’t want to talk about it,” Charles Chappuis added.35
Perhaps Chappuis felt a bit uneasy being thrust into the role of regimental commander just before Bastogne. Nevertheless, Chappuis’ rock-solid calm was just what the 502nd needed. He had earned a reputation in the 101st as a steady and dependable regimental leader. At the same time, some of the more extroverted officers of the 101st called him “Silent Steve.” At one point during the siege, Kinnard, who knew Chappuis, decided he should clue in McAuliffe and his staff before it was too late:
“If Chappuis says he’s in trouble, you’d better believe it and do something about it fast, because Silent Steve will be in real big trouble and he won’t call back to tell you again.”36
As he listened to General McAuliffe brief the upcoming operation, Chappuis lived up to his nickname, his mind already quietly planning. His regiment had been on the line for more than seventy days in Holland. When they arrived in Mourmelon, he had to absorb the replacements. Luckily, Chappuis and his company commanders had thrown together several days of individual training to help incorporate the new arrivals. This included lots of familiarization with their new command structure and heavy weapons. The hard work would reap huge dividends later.37
While McAuliffe spoke with his commanders at the end of the briefing, he failed to notice a short, cocky lieutenant colonel. The man’s name was John T. Cooper Jr., the commanding officer of the 463rd Parachute Field Artillery Battalion, a unit that had just recently been sent to Mourmelon to rest and refit with the 101st. Unknown to many of the Screaming Eagles, Cooper’s outfit was a blooded veteran battalion. The unit had seen intense combat in Italy, supporting and parachuting into Sicily with the 509th PIR and the First Special Service Force (the famous “Devil’s Brigade”). The unit had also fought in the recent invasion of southern France. Now the unit was simply marking time until they would join up with the new 17th Airborne Division, which would soon be arriving in the ETO from stateside.
Many of the 101st paratroopers assumed the 463rd, which had arrived five days earlier, was just a bunch of green newbies from the States. The troopers of the 463rd, trained to parachute into battle with their 75mm M1 Pack howitzers broken down and parachuted in parts, were too proud to make much of a fuss about the issue. If the 101st boys wanted to think they were a bunch of rookies, then so be it.
As a matter of fact, Cooper had been in a discussion several days before at the mess hall with two 101st officers, Lieutenant Colonel Harry W. Elkins, the commander of the 377th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion, and Edward L. Carmichael, the commander of the 321st Glider Field Artillery Battalion. Both men, veteran artillery officers in their own right, were skeptical that a little 75mm Pack howitzer could take out a German tank. In a humble tone, Cooper told the crowd at the table that his unit had done just that at Biazza Ridge in Sicily, knocking out several panzer tanks. Cooper was immediately scoffed at and told, “The general [McAuliffe] said you could not knock out a tank with a 75mm pack. You could disable one if you got a lucky hit on a track, but not knock one out.”
Now Cooper watched the frenetic commotion and shook his head. This whole situation was a mess, he thought to himself, and he was not terribly impressed with the 101st up to this point. His “red legs” (the traditional nickname of the artillery, due to the red-striped pants they wore in the Civil War) would have called this a snafu, or “situation normal, all fucked-up.” He was not surprised that McAuliffe had forgotten about his parachute artillery battalion. He decided to reintroduce himself, and knocked on McAuliffe’s door and waited. Colonel Thomas L. Sherburne, who was the acting commander of the division artillery, answered the door and immediately recognized Cooper. McAuliffe was sitting behind his desk, signing forms for the move-out. The three discussed a possible course of action for the 463rd. McAuliffe scratched his chin in frustration and finally told Cooper, “I wish I could take you, as the 327th needs a direct support battalion.”
That was all there was to it, and a disheartened Cooper left the room.
By design, each regiment of an airborne division was supposed to have an artillery battalion to support it. (Either the glider-landed M3 105mm “snub-nosed” howitzers, or the para-dropped M1 75mm Packs). At that time, the 327th Glider Infantry Regiment was the only regiment in the division that was lacking this support. Cooper quickly held an officers’ call with the leaders of the 463rd, asking whether they wanted to be a part of the move-out of the 101st, or wait around indefinitely in Mourmelon to be reassigned. Cooper and his men figured the 101st was a veteran division, and the 17th was not. At the end of that evening, the overwhelming vote was to go with McAuliffe’s men. If any man could finagle a way, it would be Cooper—he was too determined to give up at this point.38
Cooper left his men and made for the barracks of the 327th. Cooper and his cannon-cockers of the 463rd didn’t yet know it, but even as tagalongs, they would play a pivotal role in the defense of Bastogne.
Morning, Monday, 18 December 1944
Army Air Corps barracks
Nancy, France
Layton Black could not believe they were back on alert. He looked at his watch and it was only minutes after midnight, early Monday morning. Other than a random voice, no one had officially alerted them. Sergeant Black and the other NCOs and officers then decided to send someone over to the local officers’ club to find out what was really going on.
When the sergeant returned, he was mobbed. The NCO pushed them back and waved his hands in a downward motion to signal silence.
After several seconds, the men stopped speaking and the lone NCO reported: “We NCOs are to stay where we are for the night. Yes, there has been a German breakthrough. But it is way up north in a place called the Ardennes. Go back to sleep, because we are to move out early in the morning for Camp Mourmelon.”
Another voice from the crowd then piped up: “What about the German paratroopers being dropped in the area?” Black was curious about that rumor, too.
The messenger quickly replied, nodding. “Yes, there’s an alert along the whole ETO front. Someone said they were dressed like American GIs, and some even thought they might be trying to capture General Ike!”
Black shook his head. German paratroopers—saboteurs dressed like GIs? What the hell was going on?
Black and the small group of 101st football players spent the rest of the night trying to get some sleep. The next morning, the men boarded trucks t
o head back to Mourmelon and join the rest of the division for mobilization.
Before he left with the officers, Captain Swanson swung by the barracks to give Black and the others an update about the next twenty-four hours. He told them, “The 101st Division has been alerted to move up. Somewhere to the north in the Ardennes there has been a breakthrough. It is big enough to cause Ike to send in his reserves. And just in case you didn’t know it, that’s what the 101st and 82nd divisions have been since we left Holland, the ETO reserve.”
Black could see the growing impatience and frustration in the soldiers’ faces. He could see written in their expressions, Why us? Apparently Captain Swanson read the same thing.
“Because our two divisions are the only reserve. Everyone else is on the line!” And with that, Swanson hopped in a jeep with Colonel Chappuis, who had arrived earlier to collect his officers, brief them, and take them back to Mourmelon.39
In the car, Chappuis informed Swanson that the Germans had broken through. They were to report back to Mourmelon, pack up the 502nd, and prepare to move out. Where, Chappuis admitted, he didn’t yet know. When Swanson arrived at Mourmelon, he was relieved that his company had started the process of moving out ahead of his arrival. Like good paratroopers, they didn’t wait for orders to start moving. They took the initiative and followed their standard operating procedures. That self-sufficiency, Swanson was proud to say years later, would get them through the terrible days ahead.40
Morning to 1800 hours, Monday, 18 December 1944
Marshaling area of the 1/502nd Parachute Infantry Battalion,
101st Airborne Division
Camp Mourmelon-le-Grand, Mourmelon, France
Throughout the day, the division headquarters at Mourmelon was buzzing with activity as McAuliffe oversaw the deployment of his division. Despite Colonel Cooper’s misgivings about the apparent lack of organization and direction, the 101st performed a military miracle in how quickly it assembled and was ready to roll. Almost the entire division (close to 12,000 men) would be up and moving east in less than eighteen hours.41
The paratroopers of Layton Black’s company were not the only ones feeling the heat. Sergeant Charles Verne Asay, a paratrooper in third platoon, A Company, 502nd, was busy trying to round up his squad. He had been raised for five years of his life in an orphanage in Sioux City, Iowa. The upbringing, austere and communal, had taught him to endure hardship and make do with less. Because he was one of the older boys, he was often responsible for getting his siblings and the younger lads dressed and fed. Such a sense of responsibility had led the blond-haired sergeant to quick promotion in the army as squad leader, and some sly jibes from his men for being a “mother hen.”
Still, Asay, who had joined the Kansas National Guard in 1940, wasn’t satisfied with training recruits at Fort Rucker, Alabama. As soon as he could, Asay transferred to the airborne. In England, Asay entered Able Company as a replacement squad leader, causing a bit of resentment from some of the longer-serving men. All was forgotten, however, after the D-day jump, in which Asay proved his worth as a leader. He jumped eighteenth in his aircraft that deadly night, ensuring that every man in his squad made it out the door safely.
On that fateful December night at Mourmelon, Asay organized his squad, ordering the men to grab whatever gear they could carry. Asay made sure men such as Corporal Willis Fowler, a former peanut farmer from Cordele, Georgia, loaded his heavy .30-caliber machine gun into one of the trucks, along with plenty of boxes of ammo.42
Large tractor-trailer trucks, with open trailers, were soon pulling into Mourmelon in a long, curving line. “Huge trucks, we called them cattle cars, were showing up,” Asay described. “[Soon] we all were trucked to the Ardennes.”43
Asay’s fellow troopers continued scouring the camp for supplies. As of December, the infantry regiments in the 101st had not been resupplied with the necessary provisions and war matériel for a big fight. Paratroopers and glidermen searched the camp for anything and everything. Boots, extra blankets, ponchos, helmets, bandoliers of ammo, grenades, bazookas, and machine guns were grabbed up. Paperwork was thrown aside as the regiment hurriedly packed the equipment helter-skelter into any available vehicle. Boxes were thrown onto the open-topped trailer trucks and filled the two-and-a-half-ton GMC trucks. It was concerning to the officers that so little could be found. (Troopers of the 82nd had more time after the Holland fighting to rest and refit, and with a full load of equipment and ammunition were able to start off on their journey a bit earlier.)
Meanwhile, Captain Swanson watched his NCOs like Asay count the men as they loaded onto the trucks. He would be one of the last to hop onto the trailer, because he wanted to make sure no one got left behind. He looked at his watch. It was almost 1800. Just as he was climbing up, an orderly handed him a telegram.
“The telegram stated that my wife, Jeanne, had given birth to our first child, Wallace Jr. He was born on December 13, and I received the telegram on the eighteenth as we were loading out at about six o’clock in the evening,” Swanson wrote after the war. “That gave me a whole new outlook on life, how valuable our living and existing in freedom really was.”44
Swanson took the note and shoved it into his pocket. He looked around at his paratroopers and quietly nodded. Soon the trucks carrying the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment rolled out. Many of them would never see Mourmelon again.45
Morning to 2130 hours, Monday, 18 December 1944
Marshaling area of the 1/401st Glider Infantry Battalion, 101st Airborne Division
Mourmelon, France
One of the last units to depart Mourmelon was the 1/401st Glider Infantry. Its commander was a veteran officer named Lieutenant Colonel Ray C. Allen.46 Unlike the paratroopers in the 502nd, who were all volunteers, the soldiers of the 401st were glider riders, and some were even draftees. Sometimes, in the airborne world, the paratroopers tended to look down on the men who rode into combat in gliders. In reality, the action was as dangerous as jumping from the sky, if not more so. Allen disagreed with those who looked down on the glidermen. He felt he had something to prove. He wanted to make his battalion the best in the 101st.
Unlike his polished peers from West Point, Allen came up through the army the hard way. In 1922, he enlisted as a private in the Texas National Guard. Several years later, he earned a commission as a second lieutenant. In 1941, about a year after President Franklin Delano Roosevelt mobilized the National Guard, Allen transferred over to the Regular Army as a captain. He briefly joined the 82nd as a battalion commander before it became an airborne division. In 1942, when the 82nd gave up some of its units to form the 101st, Allen went with those new units and became the commander of 1st Battalion of the 401st. Now he was leading his tough battalion in its third combat operation of the war.47
Allen trained his men hard. As a result, General William Lee, the first division commander of the 101st, declared that the 1/401st performed the best of all the infantry battalions at the Tennessee Maneuvers in 1943. Much to Allen and his glider boys’ surprise, they had bested the paratrooper battalions. The 1/401st then went on to participate in D-day and wound up conducting its only glider assault of the war during the liberation of Holland several months later. The men were expecting a much-earned break after spending seventy days in Holland. Unfortunately, the Germans had other ideas.48
At the meeting the night before, Allen had been the acting regimental commander, filling in for Colonel Joseph H. “Bud” Harper. Hence, Captain Robert J. MacDonald, the B or Baker Company commander, had stepped up to fill in for Allen to prepare the battalion until Harper returned from England. MacDonald was the senior company commander of the 1/401st and had served in that position throughout all of Normandy and Holland.49 Like many officers in World War II, MacDonald was relatively young for his rank. At twenty-three years old, he still had some growing to do. Though he was over six feet tall and was a giant compared to his commander, he weighed less than 150 pounds, so he always appeared gaunt and sinewy, li
ke a high school basketball player who wasn’t quite used to his new height.50 Despite MacDonald’s appearance, Allen could not have asked for a better temporary replacement than Bob MacDonald.
When Allen told MacDonald about the deployment order the night before, the Baker Company commander shook his head as he went over the numbers. Like the parachute units, their ammunition and supplies were far below the recommended amount for a combat deployment. Worse yet, nearly a quarter of the men were stuck in Paris on pass, including the battalion executive officer—the reason for MacDonald’s ascension to temporary command of the battalion. Able Company was missing fully half of its manpower. The men were not notified in time and missed the transport to Belgium. Along with half the company, Able’s commander, Captain Taze Huntley, was left behind in Paris. Command of the seventy-seven remaining men was left in the hands of First Lieutenant Howard G. Bowles, the young company executive officer.51
MacDonald had to make a snap decision the morning of the eighteenth. The 1/401st was just going to have to go with what they had in personnel and equipment. MacDonald issued his men their instructions: “Carry with you what equipment you came out of Holland with.”52
One of the troopers in the 1/401st, Private First Class Carmen Gisi, from Orange, New Jersey, was woken up by his sergeant and told there had been a breakthrough. Gisi, known as “Geese” to his buddies, was a rifleman in MacDonald’s B Company. He recalled specific orders to pack cold-weather gear as the rest of the glidermen were roused from their beds and given only minutes to pack as much warm clothing as they could scrounge:
“We got as much ammo and gear as we could, and then loaded up in trucks for the drive north to Belgium. I was wearing my long underwear, on top of that, my dress uniform, and on top of that, my combat uniform. Extra socks in my pockets, knit cap, gloves, and I was still freezing.”
The men in the barracks grumbled when they heard all passes to Reims and Paris had been canceled. Gisi agreed with the others that the return to combat was disheartening. “Our reaction to this was despair; we had just come out of Holland after seventy-three days of combat. [But] [a]fter we heard about the American troops getting beat up, our attitudes changed.”53